by Robin Garr » Sat Apr 08, 2006 8:25 am
Thanks for the post, Barb! Naturally I read it with great interest, and I think it's pretty much on target. The custom of posting the restaurant critic's photo in the kitchen in Louisville goes all the way back to Richard Des Ruisseaux, who was the city's first published restaurant critic back in the '70s, first incumbent in the post that I later held at The Louisville Times. Anyway, somebody went to the newspaper archives and found a photo of "Desaroo" that had been published before Scene came up with the idea of having a restaurant column, had it enlarged and copied (a big deal in those pre-computer days) and passed it around to a lot of local eateries under the headline "This Man Is Dangerous."
I was under no illusion that my description got passed around pretty fast after I took over the post in 1984. The points that NYC restaurateurs make in the article are pretty much on target here, too. I still think Ruth Reichl makes up a lot of that disguise stuff, though ...
